Edward's last parliament, 1483.
The names of the City's representatives who attended the parliament which met in January, 1483, are not recorded, but we have the names of four aldermen and five commoners, who were appointed in the previous month of December to confer with the City members on matters affecting the City.[946] In addition to parliamentary grants of a fifteenth and tenth, and a renewal of the tax on aliens, the citizens agreed to lend the king the sum of £2,000, each alderman to lay down 50 marks and 80 commoners to subscribe £15 a piece.[947] Some difficulty was experienced in raising the money, and the names of eleven persons who had refused to contribute were forwarded to the king.[948] A little more than a month elapsed and Edward was dead.
Preparations for the coronation of Edward V.
The coronation of the young prince who now succeeded to his father's throne, only to occupy it however for a few weeks, was fixed to take place on the first Sunday in May; and on the 19th April the City was busy making arrangements for the prince's reception. It was decided that the mayor and aldermen should ride forth to meet the king, clad in gowns of scarlet, their attendants being provided with gowns of the colour of lion's-foot (pied de lyon), at the public cost. Five sergeants-at-mace belonging to the mayor, and nineteen sergeants-at-mace in the service of the sheriffs, were also to ride out to meet the king, clad in gowns of the last-mentioned colour. The sword-bearer was to be provided with a gown of murrey, and a deputation from the civic guilds, to the number of 410 persons, clad in gowns of the same colour, was to join the cavalcade.[949] On the 14th May they rode out[pg 320] to Hornsey, where they met the prince and his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, and escorted them to the city. The duke was the same day appointed Protector, to the great disappointment of the queen, who again took sanctuary at Westminster. She was induced shortly afterwards to give up possession of her younger son, the Duke of York, and he and Prince Edward were lodged in the Tower by order of Gloucester, who took up his quarters at Crosby Palace, the mansion house of Sir John Crosby, in Bishopsgate Street.
Although preparations had been made for the coronation, and the City had appointed representatives from the livery companies to assist the chief butler at the banquet[950] according to custom, that ceremony never took place. Gloucester feared that if once the young king was crowned, the project which he had already begun to entertain of transferring the crown to his own head would be less capable of realization. Although he took an oath of allegiance to the new king,[951] it was not long before he determined to feel the pulse of the citizens as to their feelings towards himself as a claimant of the crown.
Shaw's sermon at Paul's Cross, Sunday, 22 June, 1483.
In order to do this he called to his assistance Dr. Shaw, an eminent preacher, whose brother, Sir Edmund Shaa, or Shaw, happened to be mayor at the time. Acting upon instructions from Gloucester, Shaw preached a sermon at Paul's Cross on Sunday, the 22nd June (1483), in which he charged the late king with bigamy, Edward IV having, as he declared,[pg 321] made a contract of marriage with one of his mistresses before he married Elizabeth Woodville, and this being the case the late king's children by her were illegitimate, and Gloucester was the rightful heir to the throne. It was arranged that at this point in his discourse Gloucester himself should appear on the scene, coming up, as if by chance, from his lodgings at Castle Baynard. By some mischance the duke failed to appear at the proper moment, and the effect was lost. The citizens sat stolidly silent, not a single cry being raised in favour of Gloucester.
The Duke of Buckingham at the Guildhall, 24 June, 1483.
Nothing daunted by this dismal failure, Gloucester made another and more successful attempt to win over the citizens. On the following Tuesday (24 June) he sent the Duke of Buckingham to harangue the citizens at the Guildhall. The duke began by reminding his hearers of the danger to which their wives and daughters had been exposed under the late king; of the undue influence exercised at court by Jane Shore,[952] one only of a number of respectable women whom Edward, he said, had seduced; of the excessive taxes and illegal extortions by way of "benevolences" they had recently suffered, and of the cruel treatment of their own alderman, Cooke. He then went on to repeat the remarks of Dr. Shaw touching the illegitimacy of the princes, and spoke of the dangers of[pg 322] having a boy king on the throne, concluding by saying that although it were doubtful if Gloucester would accept the crown if asked, he would certainly be greatly influenced by any request proceeding from the "worshipful citizens of the metropolis of the kingdom."[953] Buckingham's eloquence was lost on the citizens, who were as little influenced by what their new Recorder, Thomas Fitz-William, had to say on the matter. At length the duke lost patience and plainly told them that the matter lay entirely with the lords and commons, and that the assent of the citizens, however desirable in itself, was not a necessity. By this time the back of the hall was packed with Gloucester's partisans, so that when Buckingham put the question pointedly to the assembly—would they have the Protector assume the crown?—a cry of assent arose from this quarter and was taken up by a few lads and apprentices. This was enough; the voice of the few was accepted as the voice of the many, and the citizens were bidden to attend on the morrow to petition Gloucester to accept the crown.
The deposition of Edward V, 26 June, 1483.